


Together/Forever

by Pheister



Category: Cyberpunk 2077 (Video Game)
Genre: F/F, F/M, Fix-It of Sorts, Gen, Gender Dysphoria, Other, Spoilers!! Many spoilers, Trans V, Trans Woman V, mention of drugs
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-30
Updated: 2021-01-01
Packaged: 2021-03-11 03:08:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,705
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28438143
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pheister/pseuds/Pheister
Summary: After storming Arasaka solo Johnny and V have finally made it to Mikoshi and are faced with their hardest decision yet. What happens when you don't choose any of the options above, and who are you really without your other half?
Relationships: Johnny Silverhand/Female V, Johnny Silverhand/V, Judy Alvarez/Female V
Comments: 9
Kudos: 71





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hello, hello. I've never written fanfic before but after playing through the shitshow that was Cyberpunk 2077 I was afflicted with Feelings and ultimately felt really unfulfilled with any of the available endings. So this is my "fix-it" AU where both Johnny and V get to survive. Kinda. Really I just needed some catharsis and none of the canon endings did that for me.

In the end, it wasn’t much of a choice at all.

Die in six months, or give Johnny the opportunity to live out his borrowed second life as the better man she now knew him to be. Then the only hesitation in her voice was borne of the realization that either way, she would never see him again. That, V could not abide by, regardless of their rough beginnings. Johnny Silverhand had gone from tumor to parasite to the second half of her soul; the anarchistic devil and angel on her shoulder who saw Night City through red-tinted lenses rather than the rose-colored cyberoptics V had tried so hard to maintain. 

_Born and raised in Heywood, the whole street was my family._

But how much of that had ever been true? The streets never did raise anyone, just provided a breeding ground for the violence that would tailor her adolescence. Her only memory of her birth family was little more than a faded snapshot of coming home to find her father OD’d on downers and not even having the guts to call the NCPD to come and collect his body. 

Night City had never been kind to her, so why all this time did she think it’d let her live or die a legend? All she’d ever wanted was not to be forgotten, to not be another flickering light snuffed out by the looming shadows of industry. She spent her childhood scrounging for meals, pulling tricks and petty thievery as a means to make something of herself. It was at fourteen she finally gathered enough money to get a T-blocker implant installed, and that purchase put her out of commission for many months. She lived on one meal every twenty-four hours to simply recognize her true self in the mirror. 

She was twenty-four before she finally had enough cred to her name to afford bottom surgery, and by then T-blocker had done its part to whittle away at the sharper, more masculine edges of her face and body. She was still far taller than most cis women, and not even estrogen supplements could take away her broad shoulders and hands, or fully erase the deep growl that trailed the end of her sentences. But for once in her life, she was happy with what she saw staring back in her reflection. She no longer felt she needed to prove she was a woman to herself or anyone around her, and meeting Jackie had only compounded that. 

Gender was already amorphous as all hell in 2077, but bigotry still existed. Jackie was from a traditional background that often bred such mindsets, but if he knew at all about V’s transition he never said anything. Even after V had brought it up herself one night after far too many drinks and an altercation outside a club. They nursed their bruised knuckles and broken noses back at V’s apartment and watched the sunrise together as she relayed her first feelings of dysphoria while living on the streets. 

Jackie didn’t even bat an eye, just thanked her for being comfortable enough to share something ‘so personal’ with him. And at that moment V knew, for the first time since her father died, she had a family again. 

That all changed after Arasaka. Misty and Mama Welles were true compatriots, people she could rely on even in her darkest hours, but it had been Jackie who’d introduced them into her life, who’d taught her even legends needed something to live for. Night City eventually snuffed out even the most shining stars, Johnny Silverhand was proof enough of that. Waking up with him living in her head felt like a cosmic joke, the universe laughing at her for ever thinking she could have something that would last. Not even her own mind would be hers for much longer. 

She thought she’d come to terms with who she was, but Johnny’s memories and thoughts slowly encroaching over her own turned the truce she’d made with her own appearance to ashes over the course of a few weeks. She wasn’t sure if it was her dysphoria rearing its ugly head again or his own— waking up in a body with mostly different hardware and a swarm of foreign hormones. 

After the initial mindfuck, she and Johnny slowly transitioned from enemies to allies. He gave his ultimatum: Adam Smasher’s life for hers, an agreement to get wiped so long as it was preceded by one last fuck you in the face of Arasaka. She gave her own: if I’m not the one who makes it out of this, you keep my body the way it is.

It almost didn’t feel fair, given that V knew what it was like to live in a body you didn’t feel was your own, the discomfort of looking at yourself and not recognizing what you see. But Johnny agreed without a second thought, confident in the grandiose assumption all would work out okay simply because he willed it so. 

He’d changed, arguably for the better since living in V’s head, but a couple of months in the passenger seat couldn’t reverse a lifetime of ego. 

He wanted to save V as much as he wanted to be a martyr, that much was clear from the way he grabbed and raged at her within the deep recesses of cyberspace. His hand that was not a hand but a string of code wrapping around the impression of her upper arm, trying to pull her back from the brink of sacrifice. 

He said he was happy to go with Alt and live out the rest of his days as an AI outside the Blackwall. V looked at Alt’s ginormous, binary form, the cool detachment with which the AI faced their no-doubt unbearable displays of sentiment. V couldn’t stand the thought of Johnny ending up like her, his newfound humanity corroded by isolation in the deep net until he was nothing more than another extension of Alt’s supreme consciousness. 

“I don’t want to do this without you, Johnny.” Six months. What were six months compared to a second chance, a real one? Night City may not mourn her death but she now had a legacy to leave behind. The petty thief turned contract killer turned anarchist who'd single-handedly fought her way through Arasaka tower. Panam and Judy said they’d wait for her on the edge of the Badlands, but V never intended or thought she’d make it out of this place alive, so why put anyone else’s life on the line? What she had with Judy was special, but V couldn’t bear to hurt her after seeing how she took Evelyn’s death. Those remaining six months they’d have together would just be a festering wound compared to the quick rip of the band-aid that was V’s final voicemail to her. This way, they would never be more than two ships passing in the dark, a bittersweet memory. 

Johnny looked at her through the twitching lines of 1s and 0s that made up his features, the dark red script pinched into a grimace. “Fuck, and you think I do, V? I’m dead. Been that way for a long time. You, though, you got a chance to keep on fighting.” 

V shook her head, static buzzing where her shoulder-length hair should be. “What’s the point if you’re not there with me?” 

He looked as though he was about to retort when Alt’s echoing monotone cut through the chamber.

“There is another option. One I did not previously offer, as I believed you both wished to remain as separate entities.” Both Johnny and V turned to look at the AI, who seemed to have grown even larger as her systems continued to eat away at Arasaka’s defenses. 

“Well, shit, Alt. Can’t be any worse than what you’ve already mentioned.” Johnny crossed his arms over his chest, the movement stalled and glitching. 

“While the biochip is too corrupted to remove your engram without V eventually succumbing to her original injuries, or allowing you to overwrite her completely, I may be able to merge your biometric data into a single whole. Although this has never been attempted before, and I calculate a 57.9% chance of failure.” 

V had some netrunning capabilities, but pushing a few quickhacks was nothing compared to the limitless expanse of the deep net. “Wait, whaddya’ mean by merge our biometric data? Like we’d become one person?”

“One mind. One body. One unit. You would no longer be V and Johnny Silverhand, but someone new, together.” 

"Like Delamain."

V cut their gaze towards Johnny again, and found him staring right back, an inscrutable expression tugging at his code. “But you wanna be your own person, don’t you, V? That’s what all this was about.” 

“This was about surviving, Johnny, and I won’t even get to do that, not really.” V looked down to where her feet should be but saw only the looping geometrics of cyberspace. “Besides, I don’t know who I am anymore without you.”

V looked up again at her counterpart and swore she could see the flicker of a smile on his face. A coded subtlety she hadn’t expected this deep into the net. 

“You know what, Samurai? I've been starting to feel the same way.” He extended a hand between them. “So how ‘bout it? You and me, together, for as long as we got left?” 

She placed her hand in his, the edges blurring, fusing. It felt like dipping your fingers in an ice bath. “You and me, together.” 

They both turned to look up at Alt, their cyber sentinel standing guard, waiting for her orders. 

“Merge us up, Alt. We’re ready.” The grip around V’s hand tightened, and she squeezed back in response.

“Commencing biometric fusion in 3…2…1…”

**UPLOADING DATA…**

**ENGRAM PAIR PROGRAMMING SEQUENCE ACCEPTED.**

_Hey V._

_Hey Johnny._

**DISCONNECTING FROM DEEP NET…PLEASE WAIT.**

**END PROGRAM.**


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They are V. They are Johnny. They’re both and neither and something in between and right now they’re firing at about 50% capacity. But they still need to get out of this place.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guess who's back (back back back), back again? Enjoy the aftermath of the merge option CDProjectRed should have given us. I'm thinking probably one more chapter after this to tie up loose ends. I really just wanted to provide an ending that satisfied me personally while using all my V's headcanons. Who knows though, if the DLC's are any good I may just hit y'all up with more. See you next year!

It’s dark for a long time after that. They spend those moments floating in a seamless void, a perfect pitch-black cocoon of unsleep. Only more aware, more present, like waking up under anesthesia. They sense the scalpel dangling above their head. That 57.9% chance of failure running ugly circles in their mind’s eye. Better than being alone, better than giving up one of the few things they got out of Dexter Deshawn’s raw deal. 

V had gotten used to being lonely before Jackie came into her life. People had associates in Night City, business partners, and friendly acquaintances at best. They always wanted something in return, a bargaining chip to keep the balance. That what she’d expected Jackie first pulled her out of that Rayfield at Embers-- no stray bullet in exchange for the wheels. Instead, they both received a beating by the strong arm of the law and ended up getting breakfast together the next morning. The Rayfield was forgotten, as was the iron Jackie shoved in her face. He asked for nothing but V's company and introduced her to his fold without a second thought.

_We’re chooms now, Chica. I don’t need nothing from you but a person to rely on._

Of course, when it came down to it, she couldn’t even give him that. 

Loneliness wasn’t much of an option after Johnny’s engram managed to reboot their operating systems. He was always with her, even when he wasn’t. Staring through her eyes, sleeping under her skin. A virus she thought she could self-medicate into submission. But Johnny didn’t bow down to anything or anyone, not even her little blue pills. 

The resentment V first felt for her little ride-along quickly grew into something more. Although she'd spent the first few weeks after the Arasaka job thinking she’d just wake up one day and no longer hold the reins to her own body. She thought she’d become the audience to her own suicide, helpless to do nothing but watch as Silverhand finally sucked down the barrel he’d been threatening her with since day one. Instead, they came to a truce, a deal. And if there was anything V knew how to handle, it was biz. 

It was a tentative symbiosis. She never thought she’d end up at Johnny’s unmarked grave, signing an epithet that thanked the digital ghost for saving her life. They could be allies, sure, but friends? The intimacy of their connection could hardly be categorized by such a term. It wasn’t until she found herself on that rooftop that she realized she couldn’t do this without him. That she couldn’t have done _any_ of this without him.

And Johnny. Well, shit. Apparently, Johnny felt the same way. 

* * *

The cold creeps in. A numbness in their extremities razoring up their spine in a sudden shock. They suck in a breath, inhaling coolant instead of oxygen and spluttering on the way up.

_Wake--_

They can’t breathe.

_Wake the--...burn…_

It’s dark and there is no air.

_Samurai-- City….to…._

Their hands press outwards, smacking against a smooth interior. It feels like a coffin. How many times have they died now? 

_Wake the fuck up._

Eyes open, stinging with chemicals, shards of ice bite into their palms as they pull themselves up, _up--_

They collapse over the side of the coolant bath, dragging themselves free and onto the hard ground of the Mikoshi core room. One hand wraps around the wire connected to their wrist jack and tugs it free, hissing air between their teeth as it disconnects. 

The floor meets the back of their head as they lay supine, heaving in deep and ragged breaths of the temperature-controlled air. 

_“V.”_

Alt’s voice sounds out from the monitors hidden about the room, a cavernous echo that jumpstarts them back onto their feet. Everything _hurts_. It’s a soreness they can feel down to their soul. Like they just ran a mile. Maybe two.

_“V.”_

Who is...They look down at their hands. Flesh and…flesh, enhanced by the mantis blades carefully tucked into each forearm. It’s not wrong, but it’s not right either.

They spot the tattoo on their inner forearm. A crude heart pierced by an arrow around two names they recognize.

_“V, are you listening?”_

Right. They are V. They are Johnny. They’re both and neither and something in between and right now they’re firing at about 50% capacity. But they still need to get out of this place.

_“V, are you--”_

“Yes, sorry, Alt. I’m listening.” They cannot see her but they feel her all around, watching out of every available screen. A hidden ghost in the machine. “I guess it worked.” They flex their fingers, almost expecting to hear the grind of metal digits from their left. But of course, this isn’t Johnny’s body, and it isn’t really V’s anymore either. 

_“I was able to successfully merge your biometric data, yes. But given that this has never been done before, there will likely be numerous side effects that may--”_

“Is the biochip still killing me?” They interrupt, impatient in a way V seldom was. 

If AI’s could hesitate, they would take the second of silence preceding Alt’s answer as such. _“No. Merging Johnny’s engram appears to have stabilized it. But I would not suggest removing it from your system until it is examined by a medical professional.”_

Oh, Vik’s gonna _love_ that. 

They shake their head like a dog, sending drops of coolant flying every which way. Their Samurai jacket sits by the edge of the tub, thrown to the side to avoid staining it. They look down and survey their wounds. Bruises and scrapes and a couple of minor sprains and fractures from where Smasher got a hit in. Johnny’s dog tags dangle from their neck, the weight now familiar in more than one way. 

“Preem. Then let’s get the fuck outta here.” They swing the jacket around their shoulders, staving off the chills that seem to have sunk bone-deep during their little dip in the coolant bath. Patting down their holsters they find their trusty Malorian Arms 3516 and load in a fresh clip. 

_“Now that I am in control of the base’s security system I am able to clear a path for you to the tunnels. I suggest you move quickly. They will be calling for backup.”_

They grip their weapon close, knuckles white and finger on the trig. “Don’t gotta tell me twice.”

They make their way from the core, prepared for whatever waits for them on the other side. 

* * *

Now drained of the adrenaline that preceded their attack, the slog back through the tunnels is more than arduous the second time around. Every footstep feels like it might be their last, preceding the inevitable collapse of body and mind. They didn't think they'd make it this far, and they know if they can just drag their ass back to the Aldecados camp they're going to be in for a world of grief from Panam and the rest of the crew. V had promised to call them when she decided to make her move against Arasaka, and what'd she do instead? Leave her last rites on a voicemail. No doubt the attack on Arasaka already spread to the news, It wouldn't take Pan and Judy long to put the pieces together. 

_Ugh._ Their combined wrath was going to be a sight. Maybe V should have thought twice about introducing the ladies to each other. 

Speaking of. They fish their phone out of the pocket of their jacket, thumbing open the lock screen. No service this far underground, but they can see 10 missed messages from Panam along with several from Judy and...one from Rogue? Guilt eats away at their stomach as they stumble out of the drainpipe into an ankle-high pile of sludge. Blue and white bags of garbage make mountains along the edges of the runoff, effectively hiding their Porsche from view. They limp around the corner, relief unwinding something tight and sharp in their chest when they see the car is still in one piece. 

They slide into the driver's seat with a sigh, head tipping back and eyes squeezing closed. Shit. They could sleep right here if they let themself. 

Instead, they open up Panam's contact info and gives her a holo. It barely rings once before she picks up.

"V?" They almost flinch. They hadn't expected the immediate concern in her voice. Anger would have been easier.

"Hey...Panam. I'm uh, not dead." 

"..."

"Pan, you there?"

"You stupid fucking GONK!"

_That's_ their girl. 

They hear wheels screech to a stop, the sound of thorn's engine roaring as Panam assumedly pulls to the side of the road. "When I heard what happened with Arasaka I thought you were-- You promised you would call! But instead, I wake up to this voice mail and you're-- UGH! I would punch you right now if I could. I hope you know that! Do you know how worried Judy has been about you? She's been chain-smoking outside camp since four in the morning! How could you do this to her-- to all of us?! We thought you were-- I thought you were--" It takes them a moment to realize Panam is crying, angry tears streaking her face and gathering at the peak of her chin. She shakes her head, slamming her hands on the steering wheel in front of her.

"Where are you? How did you get out? Are you hurt?" Back to business. Panam was pro at compartmentalizing her feelings in the heat of the moment. It was after the fact that she tended to break down. V had made note of this during her initial confrontations with Saul. Saving him had been easy. It was only after he was back at camp safe that everything went to shit. 

"Yeah, I'm-- I'm alright, Pan. I'm safe. Nothing a Bounce Back and a couple of bottles of tequila can't fix." Panam made another frustrated noise, trying to conceal the obvious hurt with more fire. But they were more observant than either Johnny or V. They knew better. “Look, I’m...I’m sorry that I didn’t tell you what I was planning. You can kick my ass all about it once we’re on the road, but we gotta get the hell outta dodge first.” 

Panam doesn’t deign to look at them, her gaze pulled towards whatever stretch of land was in front. “Where are you?”

They looked around, trying to make heads or tails of the jumble of memories swirling around their cranium. “Uh...landfill not too far outside of the city. I’ll shoot you the coordinates.”

Panam’s chin tilts forward, arms resting on the steering wheel. She looks exhausted and furious. “Fuck, alright let me tell the others. We’ll make our way to you.”

“Who else is with you right now?”

A dry sound escapes Panam’s lips, laughter without humor. “Just about the whole camp was ready to storm Arasaka to pull you out of there. When we heard what was going down on the radio we knew only you would be dumb enough to storm a multi-billion dollar HQ on your own." She crossed her arms over her chest, finally turning to face V fully in the holo. "I hope this means you finally got the shit with your biochip figured out.” She turns her weary gaze towards the camera, eyes dark and obscured by loose strands of hair. She looked as though she hadn't slept. Likely because of them. 

They clench their fists and look out the window of the Porsche. Towards the horizon, the sun inches out from behind the piles of garbage, spilling light like blades of honey over the miserable land. It’s almost beautiful. Almost. “It’s a long story. I’ll tell ya after you’re done kicking my ass?” They flip the coordinates to Panam, hitching up a leg over the dashboard to stop it from bouncing. 

Panam sighs and puts the car back into first gear. “Better be a damn good story, V.” 

“Oh, you won’t believe it when you hear it.”

An almost-smile pulls at Panam’s lips. The begrudging joy of knowing her gonk-brained friend wasn’t dead just yet. “I’ll hold you to that. See you soon, V.”

“See ya, Pan.”

**END CALL.**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, what do ya think? I'm considering calling them J as an homage to both Johnny and V. Next chapter will deal with confrontations, old faces, and finally saying goodbye.


End file.
